A Danish traveler has become the first person in the world to visit every country in a single unbroken journey without flying.
Danish-born Thor Pedersen, 44, set off from his home in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Oct. 10, 2013, at the age of 34, thinking his trip would take four years. However, the adventurous journey took a decade.
Mr. Pedersen, who has training in first aid and experience working in the military as a U.N. Peacekeeper, set out on the 150th anniversary of the Red Cross as a goodwill ambassador by crossing the land border to Germany. He completed his journey and returned to Denmark on July 26, 2023, from the Maldives, having traveled 237,363 miles around the world.
“That’s a distance of going nine and a half times around the planet, or going one time up to the moon,” Mr. Pedersen told The Epoch Times.
Preparations
“There were three cardinal rules,” he said, “that I couldn’t fly at any point, that I had to spend more than 24 hours in every country as a minimum, and that I could not return home until I reached the final country, or if I quit the project, of course.”Mr. Pedersen was born in the late ‘70s and grew up running around in the forest pretending to be Robin Hood or Indiana Jones. He eventually started to read about explorers.
“By the time I turned 20, I was very much aware that there wasn’t really anything left,” he said. “There were no undiscovered continents, we have satellites flying about in the sky taking photos and videos of everything. ”
However, in early 2013, he found out that very few people had reached every country in the world, and no one had achieved this incredible feat without flying.
When he thought about it further and set out to achieve the impossible, his father was “highly concerned” that his son would destroy his career in shipping logistics by leaving for so long. Meanwhile, his mother, who he describes as “a little bit more of a dreamer,” loved her son’s plan from the outset.
About a month into his trip, Mr. Pedersen’s father came around and became one of his biggest supporters.
Mr. Pedersen set out by mapping the logistics of his route around the world without planes. Throughout the journey, he carried 10 passports. He also had to consider personal safety, arranging a contact ahead of time to meet him at the border of any country that “had a profile that warranted more preparation.”
Money Matters
Next came a major component of Mr. Pedersen’s journey: the budget.From his background in shipping logistics, he struck up a partnership with the geothermal energy provider Ross Energy, who agreed to sponsor him for $20 per day. This would help him cover transportation, accommodation, meals, and visas in some countries. While visa prices were fixed and sometimes over budget, Mr. Pedersen was able to save in some other areas.
“If the temperature was warm enough, and if the environment was safe enough, I put up my hammock,” he said. “If it’s an expensive country, then you can go to a local market and get bread and maybe get some cheese, cucumbers, or something, and then I can go and sit under a tree somewhere and have my own little sandwich.”
Meanwhile, with transportation, he had two choices. He could opt for a luxury bus, where he could choose a meal and be given a nice seat with WiFi, windows, and air conditioning.
Or he could choose a chicken bus with no fresh air, too many people, and which would make frequent stops along the way.
However, being on a tight budget, he usually chose to save money and take the chicken bus.
During his 10-year trip, Mr. Pedersen rode in various modes of transportation including 351 buses, 158 trains, 219 taxis, 87 shared taxis, 128 metros, 46 motorcycle taxis, 40 container ships, 33 boats of different types, 43 auto-rickshaws/tuk-tuks, 32 ferries, 28 four-wheel drives, 19 trams, nine trucks, four shared motorcycle taxis, two cruise ships, one carriage, one police car, and one high-performance yacht.
His longest bus ride was over 40 hours long, and his longest train ride lasted for five days.
Meanwhile, his accommodation ranged from luxury to basic. There were times when he stayed in a 20-bed dorm room, but then, on another occasion, he stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong while collaborating with the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Often, he simply slept on public transport. In some places, after hearing his incredible story, people invited him into their homes.
“Sometimes these people have a lot of money,” Mr. Pedersen said “and sometimes these are families that do not have a lot. Maybe they sleep on the ground, and they let me sleep in the bed.”
New Friends Everywhere
Throughout the journey, Mr. Pedersen kept in touch with family, friends, and followers by updating his personal blog. He also made plenty of new friends along the way.“There were very few countries where I couldn’t communicate with most people,” said Mr. Pedersen, who speaks Danish, German, some French, and some Spanish. When language failed, he found that “playing charades” worked well to communicate his needs.
All in all, Mr. Pedersen said that he had some really pleasant encounters in the various countries he visited.
“I was always looking for the good or the interesting ... in that sense, every country has left a very good impression on me,” he said. “The vast majority of everyone that you’re ever going to meet on the planet will just be ordinary people that are going to school, or going to work, or sitting in family dinners. People who like to dance and play games, sports, and listen to music.
“Of course, you do have some hard souls out there, but the likelihood that you’re going to run into those people can certainly be diminished by a little bit of planning: not walking out on the dark street in the middle of the night, not going to areas where people tell you not to go, not going directly into war-torn countries, and so on and so forth.”
However, one of the least pleasant encounters he had was being held at gunpoint in the middle of the night in Central Africa, “thinking that I was going to die.” But the traveler said that in the very same country, he met many “very, very nice people that would share their food with me or invite me into their homes.”
Mr. Pedersen had a very special travel companion for portions of his journey: his wife, who came out to visit him 27 times across the world. Mr. Pedersen calls her “Ultra Wifey” and prefers to remain anonymous. The couple met a year before the traveler embarked on his trip, and got engaged on top of Mount Kenya during her first visit.
“I thought it was going to be very romantic and that when we got to the top of the mountain, we would have a beautiful view and sunrise,” Mr. Pedersen said. “But in reality, it was a crazy snowstorm ... there was no view, it was completely wiped out. It was cold, it was windy, it was terrible conditions. We just wanted to get down as fast as possible. But I did manage to get on one knee and present a ring, and she did say yes! It was quite memorable.”
Ready to Go Home
During his travels, there were times when he felt a pull to home.He said, “After the first two years, in 2015, I was good and ready to go home. I could barely handle it anymore. I was in physical pain, some mental pain, I was struggling tremendously ... and I still had about 100 more countries I needed to go to.”
“The best way that I really can illustrate it would be to say that when I left home, it was 99 percent adventure and fun and 1 percent work,” he said. “After perhaps two years of buses and trains, applying for visas, passing checkpoints, writing blogs, doing interviews, finding a place to sleep, and all of this stuff, it turned out 99 percent work and 1 percent adventure.”
But Mr. Pedersen found the motivation to continue through promoting and raising funds for the Red Cross, and through his desire to “paint a more positive picture of every country in the world.” But sometimes he would still find himself asking, “Why am I still going?”
The closer Mr. Pedersen got to his final destination, the higher the stakes since he didn’t want his project to fail. But, eventually, he made it to the Maldives.
On July 26, after returning to home soil, he described the feeling as “wonderful.”
After a huge celebration with loved ones, Mr. Pedersen was bombarded with “an insane amount of interviews,” maybe 10 to 12 per day, and during his second month home, he suffered an eye infection, ear pain, knee pain, and headaches. Slowly, the reality of everyday life settled in.
“The body comes home, but it takes more time for the mind to return home,” he said. “There are no more countries I need to go to. If I want to fly, I can fly. I’m more in control and more of a master of my own life now, which is nice. At the same time, having done something for almost 10 years, it becomes a part of who you are.”
The Biggest Lesson
At the time of writing, Mr. Pedersen and his wife are learning how to live together for the first time. The traveler is also adjusting to being known around the world. He’s currently writing a book about his experience, slated for release in 2024. There are also plans for a documentary to screen the same year, as well as a speaking tour of Denmark.
He is still making sense of his journey and his wealth of experiences, but perhaps Mr. Pedersen’s biggest lesson learned is that no matter where you go, “people are just people.”
“The media really has a focus on what we would categorize as negative, and when you have that from morning to evening, seven days a week, all throughout the year, eventually it’s almost like a form of brainwashing ... it’s really not the truth,” Mr. Pedersen said. “The bigger part of the world is people doing their best.”
A common theme that runs through the world is people fall in love and get married. Meanwhile, some people get divorced.
“People watch Netflix, and they do TikTok dances all around the world. ... Most people have no reason whatsoever to want to do anyone else harm,” he said. “If you meet a stranger somewhere in the world, chances are that stranger is going to be a friend.”
